LIP 6 Live Online

- the course for live cooperation

LIP 6 Live Online was the latest course of teacher-in-service training "Learn Internet Projects by
Doing". The three on-site seminars of the course took place in the school-year 2007-2008, and the
international partner projects were also carried out in 2007-08. The course was organised in
cooperation of OPEKO, the National Center for Professional Development in Education, and the
Comenius 3 network COMP@CT.
The on-site seminars of LIP 6 Live Online were held at OPEKO in Tampere September 27-28,
2007, November 21, 2007 and January 28-29, 2008.
The course was coached by Ilpo Halonen, senior lecturer, M.A. The new aspect of the course was
the use of live online sessions as part of the partner projects performed with foreign colleagues and
with their student groups. LIP 6 Live Online was the 6th course with an e-journalistic approach to
project-based eLearning PBeL. The LIP 1 was organised in 2002-03.
There was a live online room for 50 participants integrated into eJournals where LIP 6 LION
participants worked. Live sessions proved to be very useful. They were used e.g. in contacts with
teachers in St Peter's School in Panchgani India. Visits of Finnish and Dutch teachers to India were
prepared in the live online room of eJournals. The LIP 6 Live Online course contributed a lot to the
development of Finn-India network, which was initiated by COMP@CT in the autumn 2007.
The course LIP 6 Live Online had the ambitious objective to train some teachers as moderators of
live online sessions.

What, where, when?

LIP 6 LION was the first LIP training for teachers consisting not only of asynchronous
collaboration but also of live online sessions, live speech and possibly video by web cameras. The
content of the course was eJournalism, i.e. creative journalistic activities of children and teenagers
on the web. They had opportunities to write, draw, sing, take photos and videos, and publish their
products, using eJournals, either on Intranet or in public on the Internet. The children worked under
guidance of their teachers. Teams of two or more teachers were free to cooperate in the Internet on
their own.

Who and how?

The Finnish course participants learned to make international projects in LIP 6 Live Online
seminars in Tampere Finland, and they helped their colleagues abroad in project making. There
were live online sessions of teachers and students in addition to asynchronous collaboration. The
course, like other LIP courses, was arranged by the Finnish National Centre of Professional
Development in Education OPEKO, and it belonged to projects of the COMP@CT network. The
course was free of charge for both the Finnish participants and their foreign partners.
The course included only virtual collaboration on the Internet, and there was no travelling for the
foreign partners in the context of LIP projects.
LIP courses 2002 - 2008

Teacher-in-service courses having this same concept of training have been organized between 2002
– 2008 followingly:

Learn Internet Projects by Doing LIP 1 for language teachers, 2002-2003

Learn Internet Projects by Doing LIP 2, regional in Savonlinna 2003
Learn Internet Projects by Doing LIP 3, OPEKO Tampere 2004
Learn Internet Projects LIP 4 Enterprise, OPEKO Tampere 2004-05
Learn Internet Projects LIP 5 Primary, OPEKO Tampere 2005 -2006
Learn Internet Projects LIP 6 Live Online, OPEKO Tampere 2007 -2008

The first three LIP courses were targeted mostly at teachers of languages.
LIP 4 Enterprise was organized for teachers interested in active citizenship and entrepreneurship in
2004-05, in collaboration with Dr Liisa Remes, an expert of the topic.
LIP 5 Primary in 2005-06 was a training course for teachers of basic comprehensive schools, grades
1-9.

Applying
Teachers in Finland filled in the application form in the Internet. Foreign partners who liked to
attend to the LIP course filled in another form in the Internet, the content of which was submitted to
the course leader.
Those who liked to be partners in the LIP 6 Live Online course attended to pilot sessions in the
school-year 2006-2007 where the use of live online rooms was shown to them in a practical way.
The course participants were introduced in the eJournal LIP 6 Live Online, which was the common
tool of information and communication between attendants, as well as the gateway to live online
rooms. The same eJournal was the central tool of information and communication when the course
LIP 6 Live Online started in the autumn 2007.

Objectives of the course?

The LIP training format was part of eJournalism, a holistic approach to project-based eLearning
PbeL. Teachers engaged in methods of networked collaboration and of international partner projects
in order to improve their own teaching and to make learning processes more and more
communicative. The e-journalistic approach has many advantages. The authenticity of
communication adds motivation. One learns a lot beside the foreign language: pupils learn cross-
cultural understanding, better skills of information and communication technology (ICT) and of
distant learning in written and oral environments both synchronously and asynchronously.

How did one work in the seminars?

In the first f2f seminar the Finnish participants were instructed to use the eJournal, a most adequate
tool for partner projects in the Internet. At the same time they started their partner projects.
Participants learned to know about project making in the Internet and about working in the net with
their pupils. They participated in live online sessions between the seminars. The further seminars,
either one or two, included checking how projects were proceeding. More advice was given to the
participants how to continue their international project work. Completing the project and its
evaluation were new topics treated in the last f2f seminar. The participants discussed the project
method and learned more about it. They also evaluated how the LIP course had been run and what it
had meant for their own work. Foreign partners were informed and instructed by the Finnish
participants, which strengthened their adopting project methods.

What did one do in the Internet?

Partner projects were carried out mostly in an asynchronous collaboration. The Finnish colleagues
worked in teams in eJournals, and they had one or more foreign partners in each journal. Partners
organized their lessons so that there was enough time for pupils to write and publish their articles in
the eJournal. In the beginning, participants instructed their students to work in an independent way
in the eJournal. Online sessions in the computer lab were needed, at least at the beginning of the
project work, for giving pupils and students instructions.
After pupils knew how to work in the eJournal they were able to go on working in an asynchronous
way, carrying out their assignments. Drafts of texts were also written and corrected on paper. After
that pupils turned their texts and images digital off-line. Only some online time was needed for their
publishing in the Internet. Knowing how to publish articles pupils were able to work ubiquitously
doing their project tasks whenever they had time.
Fastwrite questionnaires of eJournals were introduced into project work of pupils and students, and
it accelerated the speed of writing texts enormously.
Live online sessions were organised for teachers involved in projects, and for groups of students
who collaborated in the Internet. Group sessions were arranged either in computer labs, classrooms
or at homes respectively, noticing the time zones of different countries.

When were the projects made?

Partner projects were started in the first seminar, and the projects were carried out during the course
and after that. In addition to live online meetings participants used email and the internal messaging
tool of the eJournals - both for internal messages and for e-mail - to communicate to each other. The
LIP course was tutored by the course leader who was available for the participants and for their
partners by email, and also in live online sessions organized on a regular basis. Anna Airikkala, an
experienced language teacher from Nurmijärvi Finland, assisted in training moderators for live
sessions during the LIP 6 Live Online course.

Who were the partners?

The Finnish participants of LIP 6 Live Online carried out their own partner project each, together
with one or more foreign colleagues. There were groups of pupils or students included in every
partner project. The teacher colleagues of the Finns came from many EU countries, Norway and
Russia. In addition to that there were 8 partnerships in the context of the Finn-India network.

What information did the participants give to the course leader?

The course leader got the following information from the potential participants before the course:

1) in which foreign language the project will be made

2) knowledge about the pupils/students engaged in the project
- how many persons are there in the participating group
- how old are the learners
- for how many years have they learned the foreign language in which they make the project
- how long should the project last,
- has the participant got a partner whom he/she would like to recommend
3) the e-mail address which is used constantly during the project

The participants were also aksed about their experience about international project work and about
partner projects so far. The wishes and the proposals of participants and of their partners were taken
into consideration.

When did the projects start in the practice?

Pilot sessions started in August 2007, and there were repetitive sessions throughout the autumn
2007. Participants were chosen by the end of September. International project work started from the
first seminar in September 2007 on. .
What should the participants know before the course?

Basic use of computers

Browsing in the Internet
Sending and receiving email
Attendance to live online sessions
Experience about partner projects before

Teachers who had made partner projects before were invited to attend to the LIP 6 Live Online
course, because the live online component of the international project work was new to them too.
The experienced project-makers were asked to occasionally assist others during the course. The
course was useful for the experienced ones who did not yet know the eJournal, the new innovative
Internet tool which was used in this course. Foreign colleagues who committed to be project
partners were not always experienced in project making, so the Finnish teachers gave tuition and
support.

What kind of projects in the Internet?

Ideally, projects were tailored up to the need of partners. If the learner groups were beginners or not
advanced in a foreign language, projects could follow the format of The Image/Das Bild/L`Image ,
developed by the European Schools Project. This learning concept means that relatively similar
learner groups of the same foreign language collaborate in the Internet to advance their language
skills, their cultural knowledge and their technological know-how. In case of more advanced
learners other project models are adopted in collaboration.

A very personal project?

Individual Internet projects could be designed, up to the skills level of the participant, in
cooperation with the course leader and the project partner. Basically, all projects were unique and
differed from each other.

Where did the partners come from?

Partners came from a project platform of some international virtual community, who organize
partner projects on the standing basis, such as European Schoolnet, MyEurope, European Schools
Project, IEARN , Kidlink and Dafnord (German language). All these virtual communities also have
partner exchange sites where to find more partners for collaboration.
It was the course leader who tried to find out partners for projects, but teachers were able to find
partners also on their own.

What kind of tasks is the foreign partner responsible for?

If partners agreed, they could continue practically for the whole school year to perform the project.
Partners were advised to foresee how much working time it would take to carry out the project they
has agreed on, so that there would be enough time for project activities, such as informing the own
educational institution about the project, discussing the project with the partners, discussing the
project in the learner group, making the project materials with the learner group, publishing the
articles in the eJournal, commenting on the articles of others, discussing the outcomes in the learner
group, asking for help and getting instructions from the course leader etc.
Live online sessions also needed a certain amount of time. Participants were asked to calculate in
advance how much time and effort they can would be able to put on the LIP 6 Live Online project,
and keep their partners informed all time, especially in cases of possible problems.

How were the projects present in the Internet?

The participants were advised to work in the eJournal, the innovative and user-friendly virtual
environment e.g. for partner projects. It enabled live contacts, and it included both making and
editing of project results and also publishing them in the Internet. Live online rooms integrated into
eJournals enhanced collaboration. Other ways of publishing material on the web were also taken
into use according to the needs.

What advantage did the foreign partners have from the course?

The foreign colleagues were teachers who were interested in project-based eLearning. Cooperation
in the framework of this course offered them more than just standard projects. They learned some
more about supervising eLearning and about e-moderating networked collaboration. They got all
advice and instructions given to the participants. They learned to know how to implement e-
journalistic activities into project work. The foreign partners also got instructions about the
technique of the eJournal, and they had opportunities even to take part in publishing project results
if they had time and motivation to learn it.
Live online sessions greatly contributed to their knowledge about project-based eLearning PBeL.

How about foreign languages taught less in Finnish schools?

There have been teachers of English, German, French, Swedish and Russian participating in LIP
training, and they have been able to work in eJournals of respective languages.
The organizers tried to find ways to offer LIP training to all teachers, not depending on the
language. For example, if teachers of primary schools were involved, young pupils could
collaborate more in issues such as illustration, photographing, singing or videoing in order to
compensate the lack of sufficient skills in foreign languages.

What kind of results were expected?

The evaluation of the course was based on the fact that participants should be encouraged to be
networked and organized with their domestic and foreign colleagues, so as to collaborate with them.
Completing the course, all participants should have more competent in their Internet skills than
before. And they should have been better motivated to carry out partner projects in the Internet also
in future.
These objectives were reached according to the evaluations of the participants.

A certificate about participation?

OPEKO, the National Centre of Professional Development in Education, gave out a certificate also
to online partners of LIP 6 Live Online, if such a certificate was requested, where the new standards
of their competence in educational ICT were stated. The certificate proved that they have performed
the collaborative project together with their Finnish partners in the Internet.